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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25861702">Valentine &amp; Vimes: Illegal Crossbows</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aleaiactaest/pseuds/Aleaiactaest'>Aleaiactaest</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slyjinks/pseuds/Slyjinks'>Slyjinks</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Valentine &amp; Vimes [14]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Fallout 4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, M/M, One Shot Collection, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Visions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-04-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:35:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,349</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25861702</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aleaiactaest/pseuds/Aleaiactaest, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slyjinks/pseuds/Slyjinks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Non-explicit one-shots for our Discworld/Fallout 4 crossover series. A magic accident cast Sam Vimes as the Sole Survivor. He believed what he saw was real, and his belief brought reality to the game, so when he was brought home to Ankh-Morpork, the personalities made real came with him. These are stories from an Ankh-Morpork which several of the Fallout 4 characters now call home.</p><p>An index of each mini-fic with short summaries and a list of the characters that appear in each one can be found in chapter one, to make it easier to find which story you want.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nick Valentine/Samuel Vimes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Valentine &amp; Vimes [14]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1689076</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Table of Contents</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <ul>
<li>
<strong>An Android Walks Into A Bar</strong>: Takes place towards the end of "Welcome Home". DiMA and the Watch Igorina meet at Biers for a meal. (Characters: DiMA, Igorina)</li>
<li>
<strong>Well Cultured</strong>: Takes place towards the end of "Welcome Home" (or shortly after). Vimes finally makes good on his promise to help Strong find the milk of human kindness. (Characters: Vimes, Strong, Ronnie Soak)</li>
<li>
<strong>Saturday Night Fight Club:</strong> Takes place early in "Welcome Home". In the Commonwealth of the Icono-game, violence was simplified into kill-or-be-killed. It doesn’t need to work that way in real Ankh-Morpork. (Characters: Deacon, Dorfl, Vimes, Valentine, Strong, Piper, DiMA)</li>
<li>
<strong>Catching Up For the First Time:</strong> Takes place after "You Can't Say Fuck in a Terry Pratchett Novel". Nick Valentine and Hancock were written as old friends, which makes it weird when you realize they’ve only recently met. (Characters: Valentine, Hancock)</li>
<li>
<strong>Is Love Quantum?</strong> Takes place before the start of Un/Affected. Nick discusses his relationship concerns with his brother, who offers to show him how things might have gone, if only... (Characters: Valentine, DiMA)</li>
<li>
<strong>Credit</strong>: Takes place after Un/Affected. Valentine was going to have access to a chequebook whether he wanted it or not. (Characters: Valentine, Vimes, Sybil)</li>
<li>
<strong>Things You Said At 1 AM</strong>: Takes place during Going Nuclear. Valentine learns that Vimes is a night owl. (Characters: Valentine, Vimes)</li>
</ul>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. An Android Walks into a Bar</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>DiMA and the Watch Igorina meet at Biers for a meal, although the two may have different expectations as to what purpose the meeting serves.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Takes place during "Welcome Home", some time after chapter 14. By this point in time, the multi-player "Aftermath" game has been shut down, and Valentine has agreed to marry Vimes with Sybil's blessing.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>An Android Walks into a Bar</em>
</p><p>Biers was on the corner of Elm Street and Tiptoe Lane, in a drab alley off a dark street. The clientele tolerated anyone who wasn’t too normal, and DiMA was not by anyone’s standards normal, but they didn’t take well to student wizards. They were too used to student wizards who thought they looked good in black and hoods and heavy eyeliner. They’d make eyes at the vampire ladies and the prettier zombies and ghouls. Now, if they’d actually been making eyes, some of the Igors<a id="areturn1" name="areturn1"></a><sup><a href="#afoot1">1</a></sup> would have been interested, but as it was, it usually just led to smiles and comments of, “You look good enough to eat,” and a lot of unexcused absences fouling up the next report card.</p><p>DiMA, in his white, albeit somewhat ink-stained, robe and hat, was unaware of any of this, though he was able to read a room, and he quickly picked up on the fact that he wasn’t wanted there. However, he wasn’t wanted in most of the city, and if he let that stop him, he wouldn’t get anywhere. DiMA had someone to meet at a specific time.</p><p>The interior was a long, low, dark room. It was smoky, but most Ankh-Morpork bars were. DiMA thought he picked up a distinct note of clove here and something more iron-tinged. His sight gave him the feeling of colours on the edge of octarine. Maybe this place wasn’t magic, in the capital M Magic sense, all fireballs and doves, but it was definitely paranormal. Possibly even oblong; the room did appear to be longer than it was wide.</p><p>He was unfamiliar with the concept of fashionably late. He was unfamiliar with fashion in general. Igorina arrived in a grey ankle-length dress that was embroidered with very, very tiny noses all over. If he had known fashion, he would have known that she was almost but not quite conforming to the exact standard of fashion expected of Ankh-Morpork women at the moment. It was the little things that were off, like those noses. DiMA had never seen her out of uniform. He’d never even considered the concept.</p><p>Igorina smiled at DiMA, showing her teeth, which were perfectly white, a rarity in Ankh-Morpork. If examined closely, they didn’t quite all match. She greeted warmly, “Oh, DiMA! So glad you showed. You couldn’t imagine how often I’m stood up.”</p><p>“You’re standing currently,” DiMA observed.</p><p>“Yes, but perhaps we could have a booth?” Igorina suggested brightly, apparently cuing into the fact that DiMA didn’t quite seem to know what she wanted of this meeting.</p><p>They took a booth.</p><p>DiMA inquired, “What can I do for you?” It only stood to reason. People wanted things of him, and he was happy to help…</p><p>Igorina laughed a little and half covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, just to get to know you better. It’s difficult for me to meet people outside of work who are actually worth meeting.”</p><p>“What would you want to know?” DiMA asked softly. A fair number of common questions, he couldn’t answer. His nature was peculiar. He did, however, feel a scripted pressure in the back of his head to answer to the best of his ability. DiMA was aware of it. He hoped that it would fade in time.</p><p>“What do you like to do in your spare time?’ Igorina prompted, as if she’d ransacked a certain list of questions from a certain type of magazine.</p><p>“In a certain sense, all of my time is spare time,” DiMA mused, “I enjoy contemplating the nature of reality, although I fear that may fall under ‘work’...”</p><p>A deep, dark shadow with a low, rolling voice inquired, “Take your drink order?”</p><p>Igorina nodded to DiMA, at his answer, and then she looked to the shadow and said, “I’ll take a Neck Bolt. DiMA, would you like anything? I’d recommend anything that’s clear.”</p><p>“I don’t drink,” DiMA said softly.</p><p>“...wine?” someone else sniggered.</p><p>DiMA wasn’t in a position to understand the joke. “Not that, either.”</p><p>“Your brother does,” Igorina observed, “and that will be all for now,” she said to the shadow, which departed.</p><p>“My brother is less likely to trap himself inside philosophical conundrums involving there being no ethical consumption in an animistic universe,” DiMA murmured, crossing his arms in front of him on the table and leaning slightly forward. The table had more interesting carvings than, say, the Mended Drum. There were the assorted addresses and clacks handles, but there were also deep grooves, as if someone had scratched claws into the wood and dark brown stains that might have once been red and little doodles that might have once been rituals of a sort.</p><p>“That happen to you often?” Igorina asked sympathetically.</p><p>“I wouldn’t say often, but the one time was enough,” said DiMA, tracing out something on the table that definitively pertained to… fertility. “I was quite lucky, all said, that Mr. Stibbons actually decided to retrieve me. There were certain… puzzles in the way.”</p><p>Igorina smiled a smile that went all the way to her eyes. Precisely all the way to her eyes. “I’ve always liked a good jigsaw, myself.”</p><p>The shadow returned with Igorina’s beverage, which was clear. She appeared to enjoy it, despite all reason.</p><p>DiMA said, “By the way. Thank you for looking past my appearance. I know the plastic skin and tubes out the back can be... unsettling.”</p><p>Igorina laughed, snorting into her drink. “Looking past? Looking past!? DiMA, I’m looking <em>at</em> you,” and she downed the rest of her Head Bolt, “The unsettling is only the start of the appeal! Has no one told you how gorgeous you are? That asymmetry, the broken-up silhouette, the humming of your wires, the faint scent of ozone…”</p><p>DiMA blinked. Igorina had previously called him a ‘10’. He didn’t know what he was supposed to feel about this.</p><p>“How attached are you to being a wizard, anyway?” Igorina asked.</p><p>“I don’t know,” DiMA said. Magic felt… good. Disturbingly so. “It was an accident.” He’d grabbed a wand, thinking it was a shock baton, and the thought became reality, at least in part. He’d made sparks. Once he’d known that, he couldn’t forget it. “But I think making my thoughts reality would be a difficult addiction to kick.”</p><p>Igorina looked slightly downcast at that reply but then promptly brightened. “Well, there’s still all sorts of fun we could have, even if you’re celibate. There’s quite a nice collection of clockwork devices available, these days.”</p><p>Another patron, who was sitting alone at a table not far from their booth, who was… hairy, just hairy, grumbled just loudly enough to be heard, “Like anyone in his right mind would endorse celibacy if he was sitting with an Igorina.”</p><p>That was when DiMA admitted, “My apologies. I am missing something. I lack vast swathes of expected sociocultural knowledge.”</p><p>Igorina giggled. “Oh, DiMA. I’m hitting on you.”</p><p>DiMA blinked again. He considered that. He considered what it meant that he would tell Chase, when she questioned him talking to Faraday without her, ‘It came up in a private moment, Chase.’ Then there was the contents of one of Cog’s journal entries…</p>
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <span class="font-monospace">Cog's Journal</span>
  </p>
  <p>
    <span class="font-monospace">Helped Faraday move some of DiMA's equipment in the observatory area. Bad enough that those things are so damned heavy, but Faraday always insists I empty my pockets in case "I'm carrying something that would disrupt the sensitive instruments that... blah blah blah." Look, I get it, the boy's in love, but I could whack DiMA's computers with a sledgehammer and it wouldn't damage a damn thing.</span>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>Then DiMA replied carefully, “I’m flattered, but I must inform you that I’m gay.”</p><p>Now Igorina blinked. “I’m… happy that you’re happy?”</p><p>DiMA thought about what it was that Alf had called Xian, and he clarified, “I’m a molly, Igorina.”</p><p>A different patron growled, “Bloody waste, a sodding madge-cove chatting up an Igorina...”</p><p>Igorina snapped her fingers with both the thumbs on her right hand and said in frustration, “<em>Scheisse</em>! I should have known, wizard and all…”</p><p>“Oh no, we’re not all... mollies,” DiMA said gently. “Most wizards aren’t, although there may be a slightly higher concentration of men attracted to men in the general wizarding population, insofar as same sex attraction is linked to having a higher number of older brothers, and wizards do tend to have a large amount of older brothers.”</p><p>Igorina rubbed her temples and sighed. “If it had been a year ago… but no, I can’t go back to that. I have to be the best me I can, and this is the best version of me I’ve managed yet. It’s our way.”</p><p>“An excellent ethos in general, and in specific, I certainly do understand the appeal of self-modification,” DiMA said softly.</p><p>Igorina sighed again. “You’re sure you’re a molly?”</p><p>“Quite sure,” said DiMA. He thought about his dearest Faraday, his faithful assistant, who had so diligently attended to DiMA’s… equipment. “If it helps, if I were attracted to women, I’m quite certain that you’d be my type.”</p><p>“That does actually help,” said Igorina. “So, are all synths mollies?”</p><p>“No, synths are much like humans - ” DiMA started to say, and then he caught himself. Most of the synths he’d ‘known’ had never been real. There were four synths in Ankh-Morpork: himself, his brother Nick, the Gen 3 Shaun, and an escaped Gen 2 that no one had been able to find so far. DiMA was gay, Nick was bisexual, the Gen 2 was probably asexual, and Shaun was…</p><p>Shaun was probably whatever Commander Vimes <em>thought</em> young Sam was, which meant that Shaun was probably straight.</p><p>DiMA corrected himself, “- we synths may actually be significantly queerer in general than humans, but I imagine that straight synths do exist. Also, if you were referring to my brother, the term ‘molly’ isn’t entirely accurate for him. Nick does like women. Quite a bit. He just happens to be partnered with a man.”</p><p>“He’s taken, though, and heh, you’d have to be a special kind of bonkers to make a pass at Mister Vimes’s sweetie. Plus, Nick doesn’t have those handsome vacuum tubes or that delightfully ominous air, and I’m sure he knows <em>nothing</em> about plastic surgery and neurosurgery,” said Igorina.</p><p>The shadow came by again, and she ordered another Head Bolt. “You’ve got to have two. They don’t work if you just have one,” she said, and she seemed to be making a joke.</p><p>DiMA offered, “I hope you find someone.”</p><p>“Heh. Thanks,” said Igorina. “So… can I ask you to wingman for me?”</p><p>“Probably?” said DiMA, tilting his head to the side. “If you’d first explain what that means…”</p><p> <a id="afoot1" name="afoot1"></a> <sup><a href="#areturn1">1</a> </sup> <span class="small"><em>But not Igor, the bartender, who wasn’t actually an Igor.
</em></span></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>We love comments of all lengths, and understand the need for low-energy commenting like kudos. If you ever find yourself wanting to give us additional kudos, feel free to leave a comment of an icon or emoji of a heart!</strong> &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Well Cultured</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sam Vimes decides it’s time to finally make good on his promise to help Strong find the milk of human kindness, and where else do you go when looking for milk but to a dairy?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Takes place during the later portion of Welcome Home, not long after Vimes and Valentine’s engagement has been made public.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Well Cultured</em>
</p>
<p>Inside the icono-game, Vimes had agreed to help Strong find the milk of human kindness. Or rather, Vimes had asked Strong if he wanted to accompany him into the Glowing Sea and then the Institute, and Strong had taken that to mean that Vimes was going to help him find the milk of human kindness. The point was, even though Vimes wasn’t sure what a “shake-spear” was<a id="breturn1" name="breturn1"></a><sup><a href="#bfoot1">1</a></sup>, Strong had wound up with the impression that Vimes was going to help him find the milk of human kindness, and even though Vimes suspected that if such a thing had ever existed in any kind of literal way it had probably soured a long time ago, he felt some responsibility to at least try and find the milk of human kindness for Strong.</p>
<p>And of course, when you want milk, the most reasonable place to start looking is the dairy.</p>
<p>It was late afternoon when Vimes approached Ronald Soak’s dairy, Strong in tow. They’d both had shifts earlier in the day, and they were both still in uniform. Strong, in fact, tended to be in uniform even more often than Vimes himself, but considering Strong tended towards a loin cloth when left to his own devices, that was probably for the best.</p>
<p>Vimes managed exactly one knock before the door opened, and he was met with the friendly smile of Ronnie Soak, hygienic dairyman. “Mister Vimes!” he greeted. “Good of you to come by! To what do I owe for the special visit? Did you need something added to tomorrow’s delivery?”</p>
<p>Vimes almost gave into the instinct to correct Soak when he was addressed as ‘Mister Vimes’, since Soak had certainly never fought by his side, but a deeper instinct stifled that thought. For whatever reason, it just seemed wrong to insist that Ronald Soak address Vimes as ‘Commander’. Instead, Vimes gestured to his companion and explained, “No, Mister Soak, that’s fine. Actually I’m here because I made a promise,” more or less, “to help my… friend, Strong, find the ‘milk of human kindness’, and this seemed as good a place to start as any.”</p>
<p>“Strong confused,” Strong complained, pushing his helmet aside a little so that he could scratch his head. “Strong thought milk was metty-four.” When Vimes turned to look at the super-mutant, he clarified. “That mean lie.”</p>
<p>Soak burst out laughing. “In a manner of speaking, friend. People will dress up all sorts of abstract ideas in all sorts of physical bodies, but you know, when that goes on long enough, eventually the metaphorical becomes the physical.”</p>
<p>Strong stared blankly at Soak.</p>
<p>Soak smiled. “What I mean is, yes, I can help you with what you’re looking for. By the way, ‘Ronnie’s’ fine, ‘Mister Soak’ is just a bit too formal for my taste. Come on in,” and he opened the door wider, waving both Strong and Vimes into the dairy.</p>
<p>Vimes stepped through the door followed by Strong, who didn’t seem to need to duck, and Ronnie waved them over to a small waiting area. “You’re one of the ones who came from that… icono-game, right?” Ronnie asked. “Delightful business, that! Shook things up rather nicely, I thought. Kicked off some changes that were well overdue. By the way, congratulations on the engagement!”</p>
<p>“Er, thanks,” Vimes answered uncertainly as he looked around the dairy. The room was big, and for a moment something in the back of his mind pushed for attention and whispered that the room shouldn’t really be that big. He tried to follow that train of thought…</p>
<p>“Ah, goodness, Mister Vimes, I can see I’ll have to stay on my toes around you,” Ronnie observed, and Vimes dropped that train of thought and forgot about the too-large room. Just a normal dairy being run by a normal dairyman, wasn’t it? A perfectly normal dairyman who thought he knew where to get the milk of human kindness. “Now if you’ll give me just a moment, I know right where I left it…” and then Ronnie headed off into the rows and rows of neatly stacked dairy products. </p>
<p>Vimes didn’t have time to look around again, because almost sooner than he’d left, Ronnie Soak returned with a glass jar in hand. “I hope you don’t mind, but you know, when ideas take form, well, those forms can be changed around a bit. What I mean to say is, you’ll have to settle for the strawberry yogurt of human kindness. It shouldn’t be a problem, though. You’ll find I make a damned fine yogurt.”</p>
<p>Strong accepted the jar from Ronnie and examined it. “This yogurt of human kindness?”</p>
<p>“That it is!” Soak reassured. </p>
<p>Strong frowned at the jar in his hand for a few moments more, then shrugged and said, “Okay.” He popped the lid off and dug his hand into it, then scooped a handful into his mouth. “Mmmmm,” he said, in obvious enjoyment.</p>
<p>Vimes made a face and muttered, “So much for hygienic dairy.”</p>
<p>“The dairy is hygienic,” responded Ronnie. “We make no guarantees about the customers, however.” Then, making conversation, he asked, “So Strong, how are you enjoying Ankh-Morpork?”</p>
<p>“It okay,” Strong replied in between slurps of strawberry yogurt. “Him, Commander, good leader, and him, Detritus, good teacher. Very strong. Strong learn many things, like duty.”</p>
<p>“Duty is important,” agreed Ronnie.</p>
<p>Strong nodded and continued. “Like Dysc. Like Shake-spear, only audience throw plants, not people. Hwel write good, and Tomjon better act-tor than Rex. Strong like to see the plays. Many hidden wisdoms.”</p>
<p>“Ah! A discerning consumer of cultures!” exclaimed Ronnie. “No wonder you’re enjoying the yogurt so much!”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Strong answered before licking what he could of the remains out of the jar. “Very tasty.” He looked up at Ronnie and frowned. “Not feel much stronger, though.”</p>
<p>“Well, I daresay it’ll help your bones in the long run,” Ronnie replied, “and a… watchman like yourself could always use the calories and protein, but, sad to say, the real potency of human kindness never does live up to the stories people make of it.”</p>
<p>“Ha ha,” Strong laughed, nodding. “That true. Humans brag lots, tell many stories, usually not as strong as stories say.”</p>
<p>“Not usually,” Ronnie agreed, “although every now and then, they’ll surprise you.”</p>
<p>“Yes,” Strong replied, nodding.</p>
<p>“So can I put you down for regular delivery of the yogurt?” Ronnie asked, picking up a small notebook.</p>
<p>“Strong get yogurt <em>every day?</em>” Strong asked excitedly.</p>
<p>“If you want it! Every morning, 7 am sharp, reasonable prices!” Ronnie answered.</p>
<p>And so the two worked out a payment schedule. For a moment, Vimes wondered how Soak would deliver to Strong at 7 am every morning if he was delivering to the Vimes residence at 7 am every morning, and then Ronnie showed them the door, smiled, and Vimes forgot what he’d been thinking about.</p>
<p>It probably wasn’t that important, anyway.</p>
<p> <a id="bfoot1" name="bfoot1"></a> <sup><a href="#breturn1">1</a> </sup> <span class="small"><em>Besides something that Deacon felt appropriate to insert into the middle of battle.</em></span></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>We love comments of all lengths, and understand the need for low-energy commenting like kudos. If you ever find yourself wanting to give us additional kudos, feel free to leave a comment of an icon or emoji of a heart!</strong> &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Saturday Night Fight Club</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In the Commonwealth of the Icono-game, violence was usually simplified into a kill-or-be-killed matter. Ways of getting opponents to back down or surrender were limited, and there was no such thing as a non-lethal take-down. It turns out that the instincts created for an environment like that aren’t ideally suited for the real world, even when that real world is Ankh-Morpork.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Takes place fairly early on during Welcome Home, when the Fallout characters had been living in Ankh-Morpork for a bit over a month.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Saturday Night Fight Club</em>
</p><p>Once hired, Deacon threw himself into his work at the Golem Trust. The main thing that the golems wanted out of Deacon was for him to go check up on golems that the Trust hired out, to make sure that they were being treated well. A golem checking up on golems caught attention, but Deacon could pass off being anywhere with a glib excuse. He did some paperwork to justify his title as secretary, sure, but otherwise, he was paid to see the city and dig up dirt on all walks of life. Deacon couldn’t quite express his undying gratitude to the golems for giving him this opportunity. He had to be doing something; he was that kind of person, and this was exactly what he’d been designed to do. Best of all, he wasn’t doing it for some government or rich asshole; he was doing it for decent people who needed his particular set of skills. Deacon had to be good for something.</p><p>He was early to the Trust that morning; he’d found a shortcut he liked, and he saw a group of hooded figures with buckets in their hands clustered at the front door of the Golem Trust. One slopped a bucket of paint up over the Golem script letters over the door. Words were important to golems. Words were <em>life</em> to golems. Did the vandals get that? Did they know what they were doing?</p><p>Deacon pulled his cigarettes and lighter from his pocket and lit a cigarette before he called out, “Hey, knock it off! This isn’t Art Day at kindergarten!”</p><p>One of the hooded hooligans turned around to look at Deacon and said, “Aw, sod off, pottery-lover.”</p><p>Someone threw a bucket of paint at Deacon. It splashed over his face, coating his sunglasses. Deacon recoiled, eyes tightly closed, as he tugged off his sunglasses and pushed on an emergency pair before opening his eyes again. There were reasons why Adora carried around a crossbow, but the hooligans were too close range now for anything other than one of the nasty little one-shot dealies that Whispers hated so much. Reaching down for the knife in the concealed pocket in his trousers, he growled, “Yeah, so this is happening.”</p><p>“You’re in <em>tweed</em>, you twat,” heckled one of the hooligans, this one hefting a sledgehammer rather than a paint bucket. </p><p>Deacon’s fashion choices at the moment were a performative attempt at looking like the secretary he supposedly was. When the hammer swung at him, he didn’t think about it. He just lunged. Metal hit flesh, and metal beat flesh, parting it like… well, not like butter.</p><p>There was a spray and a scream and the other hooligans broke and run, hissing something about, “Those pieces of clinker’ve got a bloody Dark Clerk!”</p><p>Deacon knew he didn’t want to be compared to a Dark Clerk, paint and something else that was decidedly sticky dripping down the side of his face. He stood, wobbling, the knife still in hand, as he realized that the man at his feet was still breathing. Well, he hadn’t actually wanted to kill him, right? Just… scare them off?</p><p>Only actually stabbing someone was a completely mental way of trying to scare people off, now that Deacon <em>did</em> think about it. Oh jeez, he’d almost murdered somebody. Bile rose up in the back of Deacon’s mouth. This wasn’t even the first time something similar had happened since he’d been in Ankh-Morpork. He wanted to play it off, call it reflexes, say he was a twitchy bundle of nerves, but… oh, that hooligan was bleeding a lot. </p><p>Deacon somewhat awkwardly slung the man over his shoulder and his arm over his other shoulder so he could reach over to hold his wrist to keep him from falling off and feel that thready pulse. The man didn’t resist. <em>F—.</em></p><p>
  <em>F—?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Damn!</em>
</p><p>Where was the nearest hospital? Unbalanced by the weight, Deacon staggered off Prentice Spaw and onto Fewmet Lane, picked up into a run, turned onto Old Honesties, and saw the ornate facade of Saint Nethers, maternity and lying-in hospital. The carved stone ornamentation was very <em>educational</em>. It was still a hospital, right? He pushed open the door and dropped off the hooligan on a waiting room chair.</p><p>The receptionist looked up and said wearily, “He’s not having a baby, is he?”</p><p>“I hope not. I’ve got enough kids,” Deacon lied. “Look, some shameless ruffians got me with paint and stabbed him.”</p><p>“Was it two?” asked the receptionist, bored.</p><p>“Two what?” said Deacon.</p><p>The receptionist sighed. “You always get jumped by two men, don’t you know? It’s never one. And you’re always just minding your own business. It’s $30 up front, and someone’ll see him.”</p><p>Deacon went through the hooligan’s pockets, found pocket change, and added in enough of his own to make the requisite $30, which he handed over to the receptionist. Deacon didn’t even make $30 a month, though the $20 a month that he did make was quite fair for an ordinary secretary. However, money was just a way of keeping score, and Deacon had his ways of making up for it.</p><p>As soon as someone from the hospital took the hooligan back, Deacon slipped away, ran back to his current bolthole, stripped, dumped a bad bottle of cheap turnip vodka over his head to get the paint and the blood off, and changed. Then he casually walked back to work. Deacon made a show of noting the paint splashed over the letters above the Golem Trust main door, and then he ducked in. “Sorry, I’m running late, Klug, I mean, maybe if I was running, I wouldn’t be late, but I’ll get you those reports on how Nyanye and Khirurg are being treated right away.”</p><p>Dorfl was with Klug, a notebook in his great ceramic hand. The golem sergeant swiveled his burning gaze to Deacon and declared, “Mister Deacon, I Would Like To Take A Statement.”</p><p>“Sure, I’ve got some spare ones I can give you,” said Deacon, shoving down his panic. There’d been witnesses, right? It was a busy city. The streets were always packed with a crush of people. Every muscle in his body tensed all at once, like he’d eaten a rusty tin of beans and gotten some of that old tetanus going on.</p><p>“You Are Acquainted With The Concept Of Obstruction Of Justice,” Dorfl said calmly.</p><p>Making false statements to officials? Deacon gave a thin-lipped smile. “Acquainted? We’re best buds.”</p><p>“Big Dave Says That He Saw Two Hooded Men With Paint And One With A Sledgehammer Outside The Trust. One Had Already Flung Paint Up On The Golem Trust Sign Which Is Graffiti. He Says That He Saw One Fling Paint On You Which Is Battery And The Other Swing A Sledgehammer Which Is Assault,” said Dorfl, whose glowing eyes appeared to be noting the distinct lack of paint anywhere on Deacon’s person.</p><p>Wait, wait, Deacon was the victim here? He said coolly, “I’ll take your word on it. Anyway, I clean up nice.”</p><p>“Big Dave<a id="creturn1" name="creturn1"></a><sup><a href="#cfoot1">1</a></sup> Says That You Defended Yourself In, I Quote, ‘Right Traditional Shades Fashion’, And So Now I Must Ask You Where You Have Put The Body,” Dorfl concluded.</p><p>“<em>Oh</em>. No. No body. I didn’t kill anyone,” Deacon said glibly. “Ha hah, that’d be ridiculous, killing someone over a bit of defacement of words, am I right?” He studied the golems’ reactions carefully, knowing that words were different for them than they were for him. “Why, I walked him down to Saint Nethers.”</p><p>Dorfl studied him inscrutably. Deacon had to get better at reading golems. Then Dorfl said, “I Do Not Believe The Assailant Was Pregnant.”</p><p>Deacon waved a hand dismissively. “Probably not, but there’s physicians there, and they take money.”</p><p>Dorfl studied Deacon some more, as if dissecting both Deacon’s statements and behaviour and finding both peculiar. “This Is So. You Have Been Of Material Use, Mister Deacon. I Will Go Now To Saint Nethers.”</p><p>“It’s a short walk. Maybe stop at the massage parlour, get your nails done?” Deacon suggested flippantly.</p><p>“I Am On The Clock, Only Not Literally, I Merely Wish To Convey That I Am Working,”
 said Dorfl, as if that was the only barrier between him and some sweet fire-red enamel on his ceramic fingertips, and he headed off.</p><p>As the golem sergeant left, Deacon wiped his brow and then flopped down in his chair at his desk, looking at the briefs on the golems Nyanye and Khirurg. He hadn’t murdered anyone. It had just been way too close for Deacon’s comfort, and this hadn’t been the only incident.</p><p> <a id="cfoot1" name="cfoot1"></a> <sup><a href="#creturn1">1</a> </sup> <span class="small"><a href="https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Dave%27s_Pin_Exchange">Big Dave</a> of Dave’s Stamp and Pin Exchange, located quite near the Trust and several other reputable businesses.</span></p>
<hr/><p>It was funny, and by ‘funny’ what Deacon actually meant was ‘coincidental’, how Whispers just happened to end up completely innocently picking up takeout for the family because his chef had the day off at the exact time Deacon was investigating Jolly Dolly’s Cafe and Bake Shop. Vimes looked his friend over and said cheerily, “You look well, Deacon.”</p><p>Being called ‘Deacon’ in public was taking some getting used to, but it <em>was</em> the name he’d given to the Golem Trust. “Hey, I always make this look good,” said Deacon, gesturing with his eclair to the empty seat across from him.</p><p>Vimes set down his full bags of cafe goods and sat down. “A little birdie told me you’d gotten into a scuffle. I’ve got to be concerned, now don’t I?”</p><p>A little birdie? More like a huge hulking golem. Narced out by Dorfl. The perils of working for law-abiding ceramic entities. “Only about my dry cleaning bill.” Had Ankh-Morpork invented dry cleaning? Probably not yet.</p><p>“I don’t have enough friends that I can afford to lose any,” said Vimes, a little sadly. </p><p><em>Yeah, well, that’s on you for being an idiot, buddy</em>, Deacon thought, knowing why that sadness was there, but what he said was, “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about me.”</p><p>Vimes rolled his eyes. “I know my city. She’s Goodneighbour dressed up like she’s Diamond City. Now, I told Piper where she can get an, ah, blackjack at a very reasonable price - ”</p><p>“Being insufficiently armed is not an issue, Whispers,” laughed Deacon. “If I was any more armed, I’d have to become a nun at the Spiteful Sisterhood of Seven-Handed Sek.”</p><p>Vimes studied Deacon. Deacon had said that him being insufficiently armed was not an issue, and now that Vimesy brain was asking, ‘What is the issue, then?’ Vimes took a stab in the dark, “Now, I s’pose shivving Blu Nel over a bit of graffiti was a mite harsh. He’s fine, you’ll be pleased to know.”</p><p>Deacon prided himself on not having many tells, but he had no shame when Vimes saw right through him. He shrugged. “I don’t know that ‘pleased’ is the word, I just…” <em>Don’t like excessive violence. It’s bad optics. It’s bad… everything.</em></p><p>What was it he felt like he was supposed to say?</p><p>
  <em>I'm everything wrong with this whole f—ing Commonwealth.</em>
</p><p>Right.</p><p>Vimes drummed his fingers on the table, pensive. “I’ll admit to you I was disturbed by the violence in the Commonwealth, even the way violence worked there. How you could,” he squirmed, “decapitate a man with a baton. I knew that wasn’t how it ought to work. But do you know that?”</p><p>Deacon winced. Commonwealth enemies generally went for the kill and fought to the death, even when it didn’t make sense. A simplification. A gaming abstraction. It was kill or be killed. Those weren’t useful instincts to have in a real city. Those were instincts that had kept him alive, but Deacon couldn’t be giving hooligans arterial bleeds and cracking muggers’ skulls into brick walls and <em>—</em> . There’d been a few incidents. He hadn’t killed anyone. Barely. He needed new instincts for a new world. More fine-tuned instincts. “Of course I know that! I’m not a fan of wanton slaughter.”</p><p>“I know you’re not,” said Vimes, with surprising gentleness, “but, look. You know the only thing Detritus had to teach Nick at the Lemonade Factory?” the training grounds for Watchmen.</p><p>“How to use a phone book?” Deacon said flippantly.</p><p>“...I don’t know that that is, Deacon, don’t be lewd. No. Nonlethal takedowns, and you know Nick, Deacon, he’s perfectly lovely - ” Vimes gestured animatedly.</p><p>“I don’t know that Nick’s lovely like you do,” Deacon said sharply.</p><p>Vimes went pale. “Deacon. Don’t.”</p><p>Deacon let it drop. If Vimes wanted to be a pining idiot in love who would continue to pine uselessly instead of do anything constructive about the situation, that was his own problem. Deacon was no one’s romance advisor. “So what, Nick had the same problem?”</p><p>Vimes nodded, “Because the game was simplified, right? You don’t know how to make an assailant submit, on account that wasn’t something that could even happen.”</p><p>“I guess,” Deacon mumbled, thinking it over. He still thought it was more likely that he was just a violent piece of garbage, a fraud who didn’t deserve to exist in polite society.</p><p>“This is absolutely something I can help you with,” said Vimes, trying to make eye contact with Deacon’s sunglasses. “Come by my place, Saturday, oh, around 8 PM? Wear something you can move in.”</p>
<hr/><p>Getting invited over to the Casa del Vimes seemed to be something that was going to be happening to Deacon on the regular. It was weird, having a <em>friend</em>, not a ‘contact’, who was a pillar of the community. Deacon got the sense that it was just plain weird on Whispers’s end that he had friends at all.</p><p>This little group meeting in one of the many gardens of Vimes’s vast backyard consisted of the Whispers-man himself; Deacon; Piper with her little sister Nat; Nick Valentine, standing about as far as away as he could be from Vimes while still being in the same general area; Strong, still in his Watch uniform; and that spacey, fascinating Gen 2 DiMA.</p><p>Vimes admitted, “I s’pose I should have thought more about having been fictional would affect you all. I know it really got me down how enemies in the Commonwealth almost always had to be killed, but I didn’t think what it would mean for you all,” he gestured, “having come from such a place. So I’ll be going to go over a variety of de-escalation techniques and, if those aren’t an option, and you can’t just run, some specialist nonlethal takedowns with the help of Nick and Strong.”</p><p>“Wait. What. The super mutant is here to help <em>instruct</em>?” Deacon sputtered. Oh, Whispers was getting him good, wasn’t he?</p><p>“Yes, he had to learn them. Basic requirement for getting out of the Lemonade Factory,” said Vimes, matter of fact.</p><p>“You’re saying that the super mutant figured this out more quickly than I did?” Deacon was incredulous.</p><p>“Him Detritus good teacher,” grunted Strong. </p><p>“Yeah, I don’t think filling out the paperwork over excessive use of force woulda really been your strong suit,” said Valentine, frowning at Strong.</p><p>“Strong not have suit. Strong have you-knee-form,” Strong corrected.</p><p>“Huh. Yeah, I guess that’s why I slammed that guy’s head into the bar when he made a pass at me and S… and my date,” Piper said thoughtfully.</p><p>“I’m still going to punch out the creepy boys,” Nat said flatly.</p><p>DiMA tilted his head to one side. “Are you bringing your son, Commander Vimes?” Vimes stiffened like stone. “While child characters are typically unaggressive, Hex had to adjust his combat AI package to make him seem more realistic to you.”</p><p>There was a pained look on Valentine’s face, too. That boy had been like his own.</p><p>Vimes said quietly, “I’ll talk to him myself. And I’ve sent Preston a letter. Now, if there’s a mugger rushing at you, and he’s not with the Thieves’ Guild, you - ”</p><p>“You throw him in <em>goohuloog</em> slammer,” said Strong.</p><p>“Strong, don’t answer,” said Vimes, sighing.</p><p>“All trees are felled at ground level,” said Nat, who worked with the dwarfs of the <em>Times</em> on the printing press when she wasn’t at school or out hawking papers. Apparently, she was already picking up some choice dwarfish expressions. Good for her.</p><p>Vimes made a face. “Well, maybe, but I did say we were going to be working on de-escalation and running away.”</p><p>Piper frowned, silently working something out to herself, and then said, “And you haven’t even told us where this is happening or what the environment’s like?”</p><p>Vimes smiled manically. “<em>Ding ding ding!</em>”</p><p>Vimes, with input from Valentine and Strong, ran them through a bunch of vaguely threatening scenarios, including a genuinely baffling scenario that involved Mrs. Cake and then another with Dotsie and Sadie. Deacon was ashamed to admit, only to himself, that for far too many of these what-ifs, while his brain said, ‘charm them’, his muscles said ‘shoot to kill’. Still, if flipping Strong had gotten over his ‘combat AI package’, as DiMA had put it, then surely Deacon could manage.</p><p>It was bizarre to think that he was an AI, just some code running on a meat body. What was the difference between him and a Gen 3 synth? At least Deacon didn’t think he had a working recall code.</p><p>“DiMA, so Deacon’s coming at you - ” Vimes started.</p><p>“Isn’t the Railroad supposed to protect synths?” DiMA asked, quite reasonably.</p><p>“He’s got me, there,” said Deacon, plastering on an obnoxious grin as DiMA gave him an out. The Gen 2s had always been a question for the Railroad, but DiMA clearly had a mind of his own. If Drummer Boy made a fuss about it, Deacon was sure Glory would have shown him the error of his ways.</p><p>Vimes sighed. “...fine. Situation de-escalated. Piper, DiMA’s coming at you - ”</p><p>“Oh, I got this,” said Piper, snapping her fingers. “I tell him his brother’s gonna be disappointed in him.”</p><p>DiMA sagged, crossed his arms, and looked away, murmuring, “...that would work.”</p><p>“Yeah, and I would be, too,” said Valentine, rather pointedly.</p><p>Then Vimes had Valentine demonstrate the array of specialist takedown blows, using Vimes as the training dummy. That was a bold move. Deacon didn’t have any exes to speak of, but he sure wouldn’t have had his ex use him as a training dummy.</p><p>Actually.</p><p>Deacon would have done that for the Railroad. Anything for the Railroad. Everything for the Railroad.</p><p>Of course, Vimes was also not remotely playing fair, even if he was also clearly holding back, which meant that Valentine’s outfit was accumulating a genuinely interesting collection of grass stains.</p><p>Once demonstrations were over, Vimes had them pair off, giving Nat as a sparring partner a life-sized stuffed doll that he must have found in one of his attics. Deacon wanted very badly to break into Vimes’s attics, but that man knew his way about booby-traps.</p><p>Piper cornered Deacon, saying, “I don’t want to whale on my pal Nicky.”</p><p>“What am I, chopped liver?” asked Deacon, crossing his arms.</p><p>“Maybe, if you don’t dodge,” said Piper impishly.</p><p>He looked sidelong at Valentine, who was squaring off across from DiMA. Valentine promised, tone reassuring, “C’mon DiMA, I won’t break you.”</p><p>“That isn’t what I’m concerned about,” DiMA murmured.</p><p>“No?” said Valentine.</p><p>“You have to consider the narrative at work here,” DiMA said seriously, as the two synths circled around each other. “You’re a detective. Whatever your day actually holds, the narrative says that you face danger on a regular basis. Whereas I… I would seem to be the type to avoid danger, hmm?”</p><p>Valentine put up his dukes in a boxing stance. “Gonna talk me offline?”</p><p>“I’m just saying that when the odds seem heavily skewed in one direction, they usually are, but…”</p><p>There was the <em>screech</em> of metal on metal and a shower of sparks that moved too quickly for Deacon to follow. Then there was Valentine face-down in the garden dirt with his hands wrenched behind his back as he struggled against his brother.</p><p>“...usually not in the direction expected, to create some surprise value in the narrative. Call it, hrm, the underdog effect,” said DiMA, letting Valentine go and helping him up while Vimes shot DiMA a look dirtier than Harry King’s money. “Besides, it’s in <em>our</em> narrative that I can knock you down and out, brother.”</p><p>Now that was interesting. Deacon let out a low whistle.</p><p>Valentine leaned against DiMA and rubbed his jaw. “I… should have remembered that. Heh.”</p><p>Vimes rushed to Valentine’s other side and blatantly fussed, “You’re not damaged?”</p><p>“Only my pride,” Valentine admitted, with grace.</p><p>Then Deacon let Piper knock him on his rear a few times. He needed to practise his tumbles, anyway.</p>
<hr/><p>Golems were precisely on time, not early, not late. If they <em>were</em> late, it was time to sniff the wind, because it meant that there was probably a fire somewhere, and they’d busied themselves forming a bucket chain to put it out. Deacon, though, was not infrequently early to work at the Golem Trust because the things people did when they thought no one was around told him so much about them.</p><p>On this particular day, a couple of weeks after his training session at Vimes’s, he was seeing some teenage punks who’d collected some half-bricks and were making a game of chucking them through the recently-repaired windows of the Golem Trust. Deacon crossed his arms, tapped his foot, and <em>ahem</em>ed. </p><p>“Shove off, gaffer,” snarled a hoodlum, flinging a brick at Deacon’s head.</p><p>Deacon ducked and shoved down his rising alarm as his heart started to pound. He took a step back, took a deep breath, and paused. Another half-brick came sailing at him, which he also avoided. Then he said in a low, dull, calming tone, “I’m Mr. Deacon<a id="creturn2" name="creturn2"></a><sup><a href="#cfoot2">2</a></sup> of the Golem Trust - ”</p><p>“An’ I’m a wanker ‘bout clay,” mocked one of the teens.</p><p>“I can see that you’re having some… harsh feelings right now,” said Deacon, the understatement of the morning. That netted him a tomato, which he caught. Free salsa!</p><p>“Oh, we got harsh, all right,” said one of the other larrikins, idly tossing and catching a cracked cobble in his hand.</p><p>“I’d like you to stop what you’re doing and leave,” Deacon said, putting the tomato away.</p><p>“C’mon, Joll. This is boring. Let’s go throw rocks at the Dwarf Embassy,” said one, tugging on the other’s sleeve.</p><p>Joll and whoever sauntered off, hands in their pockets. The third teen started to follow, but then he wobbled into Deacon and tried to sucker punch him. Twitchy, bundle of nerves Deacon ducked away, and then the teen lunged at Deacon, hands outstretched, screaming, “Bloody crackpot, Pa kicked me out when onna those golems took his job down at the fact’ry!”</p><p>Deacon pulled away, stepping back again, and a hand that had been bound for his throat ended up clutching his bicep instead. He elbowed the kid in the stomach, hard enough that the kid let go, then booked it for the door, which he unlocked, slammed behind him, and locked from the inside. There was broken glass all over the floor from the busted windows. Deacon could faintly hear that third teen wheezing to his mates, “Had to be a bloody Dark Clerk what got me! You’ll tell the Hubwards boys it was a Dark Clerk what got me, yeah?”</p><p>Deacon skulked over to a window and watched the teen toddle off to meet up with his friends. Then he grabbed the pan and broom and got to work.</p><p>Maybe there was something to what Vimes had figured out, that Deacon just needed to rewire his icono-game instincts to be more in keeping with his actual stated desire to avoid violence now that he was in a real world. He’d handled that fairly well, he thought. Maybe he was still a violent piece of garbage at heart, but at least now he had better control over it.</p><p>The glass shards tinkled into the bin.</p><p> <a id="cfoot2" name="cfoot2"></a> <sup><a href="#creturn2">2</a> </sup> <span class="small">It still felt odd to just… introduce himself by his code name like that. But then, his code name was the only real name he was sure of, and besides, it was written on his desk plate.</span></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>S: While there are a few places where the <em>Sole Survivor</em> can talk their way past a fight, and a <em>Sole Survivor</em> with the right perks can use a gun to intimidate opponents into submission, Fallout 4 doesn’t offer any non-lethal take-downs for <em>anyone</em>. Most fights are kill-or-be-killed in that game (and even the “pacifist” run that I saw described called for using your Companions to kill for you, such as against Kellog). On top of that, NPCs have a ridiculously simplified AI where they’re either aggressive or not, foolhardy or not, help allies or not. For our purposes, this means that even characters who would reasonably remember past instances where they got to talk their way past a fight (either because it was a scripted instance or a Hex-provided memory) are still going to have a knee-jerk instinct when they get into a fight of, “Death is the only way out.” It works for a Commonwealth that’s a game. It doesn’t work for a real Ankh-Morpork.</p><p>Weeeeeeell… except it kind of does, since Ankh-Morpork, for all the changes it goes through, is presented as still kind of rough and wild. If you start a fight with someone else and they kill you, well, as far as Ankh-Morpork is concerned, that’s just Suicide. Most of these characters <em>could</em> probably have gotten away with never addressing their “killer instincts” (except for Nick and Strong, of course. Ankh-Morpork may be chill with disproportionate response in self-defense for a civilian, but Vimes don’t play that game).</p><p>But most of these characters are the sort who seem like they wouldn’t want to kill if they didn’t absolutely have to (Strong being a major exception, but luckily he has Detritus to keep him in line). Valentine definitely favors it when the player chooses the “non-violence” options, and Deacon constantly talks about his distaste for “collateral damage” and very much gives off the vibe of someone who’s somewhat afraid of the sort of violence they’re capable of (as it turned out, in this case he was somewhat justified, only not for the reasons he would have expected).</p><p>Anyway, A and I were thinking over various characters’ likely reactions when taken off guard, and how disproportionately violent those reactions may or may not be, when we started wondering how being former game characters might impact things, and so A wrote it up!</p><p><strong>We love comments of all lengths, and understand the need for low-energy commenting like kudos. If you ever find yourself wanting to give us additional kudos, feel free to leave a comment of an icon or emoji of a heart!</strong> &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Catching Up For the First Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>In reality, Nick Valentine and John Hancock only recently met, but their fictional history has them as old friends, and sometimes how you feel about a friend is what really matters. This means that now that Nick knows that Hancock made the jump to the real world of Ankh-Morpork, it’s time to catch up.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Takes place shortly after the end of “You Can’t Say ‘Fuck’ In A Terry Pratchett Novel”.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Catching Up for the First Time</em>
</p>
<p>Nick Valentine entered the Unicorn, a restaurant with a bar that stood directly across from the Dysk. As such, it tended towards a pretty rowdy sort of clientele. The Dysk largely showcased a troupe whose works seemed to be some sort of Disc equivalent to Shakespeare, and like what Valentine remembered of Shakespeare’s original performances, they were largely played for the common masses, crowds that, when displeased, would cheerfully throw whatever was on-hand, and who often left the Dysk in the mood for some carousing.</p>
<p>Given the Unicorn’s reputation as a party bar, it wasn’t particularly surprising that that was where Hancock had asked to meet Valentine.</p>
<p>“There you are, Nick!” Hancock called, striding over to the synth and throwing his arm over Valentine’s shoulders. </p>
<p>“Hancock,” Valentine replied with a grin as the ghoul guided him to where Hancock had been sitting. The ghoul threw himself into his seat and gestured at the drink already in front of Valentine’s seat. Valentine sniffed the drink… smelled like Old Persnickety, one of Bearhugger’s mid-level whiskeys.</p>
<p>Hancock laughed. “I ain’t out to poison ya, Nick.”</p>
<p>Valentine smirked. “Well, after that talk of troll drugs the other day…”</p>
<p>Hancock waved a hand dismissively. “Naw,” he drawled. “Why waste perfectly good chems, troll or otherwise, on someone who doesn’t want ‘em?”</p>
<p>Valentine chuckled, then looked around. “Nice to see you managed to find a place that’s all right with both ‘undead’ and ‘unalive’. Been finding that to be a bit of a challenge, myself,” he observed wryly.</p>
<p>“What, you mean you actually pay attention to any of that stuff?” Hancock asked, black eyes wide. “Nick, what’re they gonna do to you? Call the Watch?”</p>
<p>Valentine <em>heh</em>’d. There was a point. Putting aside that he was in it and married to the Commander, the Ankh-Morpork Watch as a whole was a lot less likely to enforce those sort of exclusionist rules than, say, Diamond City Security, and by “less likely”, he meant, “not at all likely.” It was more work <em>and</em> a dumb rule, and no copper wanted anything to do with that, especially if it wasn’t even city law. “Point,” Valentine conceded, then added, “although some of the places do have bouncers.”</p>
<p>Hancock shrugged it off. “That’s just a bit of exercise to help work up a thirst before the night really gets started, then,” he smirked. “I’m noticing that for all her Guilds and Watch and whatnot, Ankh-Morpork’s still something of a, ‘You can do what you can get away with,’ kinda town, and if a place don’t want you drinking there, they actually have to be able to get you out, first.”</p>
<p>Valentine rolled his optics and shook his head. “Well, let’s say that some of us would prefer <em>not</em> to start their night off with a bar fight.” </p>
<p>“You always did have a pretty subdued sense of fun,” Hancock allowed, then he considered. “Oh, and I guess these days you’re a bit more… tied down than you used to be. How'd you end up with a duke, anyway?"</p>
<p>"Y'know how it's a total rookie mistake for a private eye to fall for his client?" Valentine asked.</p>
<p>Hancock shook his head. "I'll take your word on it." Valentine was the only private eye - ex-private eye, now - that Hancock knew.</p>
<p>"Yeah. I went and did that.”</p>
<p>"So what did the police commander need with a private eye, anyway?" Hancock asked.</p>
<p>Valentine looked down at his drink and began, "He wasn't the police commander at the time... well, he was? But he didn't know it, and I didn't know it, and…” He hesitated, tried to find a way to say what he needed to say without sounding insane, and finally gave up. “Look, he got stuck in a video game that made him think he was a grieving widower with a kidnapped son, and it turns out, I'm kind of a sucker for that."</p>
<p>“That so?” Hancock snorted, then he looked a bit more serious. “But y’know, I also heard he hasn’t always treated you so great since arriving in the city. Need me to rough him up for you?” </p>
<p>Nick covered his face with half a hand. “That was a misunderstanding, and… no. No, I don’t. For one thing, he’s a dirtier fighter than you.”</p>
<p>Hancock’s eyes widened, and he let out a low whistle before finishing his own drink. Then he flagged down a barmaid and asked for a Fluff. </p>
<p>Valentine lifted his right brow-ridge. “I’m not gonna have to carry you home, am I?” Fluff was a mix of beer and scumble, and while the beer would help to dilute the drink of “apples, mostly,” that only went so far.</p>
<p>Hancock waved a hand and settled back down. “Naw, I’m good. This has been a pretty light night for me. Town’s got <em>way</em> more interesting things than scumble.” He brightened. “A lot of the classics, too. Mentats have gotten pretty easy to get ahold of, though it looks like Psycho made the short list of things you Watchmen’ll crack down on.” </p>
<p>“We’re not interested in making more work for ourselves. In the case of Psycho, that means getting it off the street <em>before</em> it gets used. Can’t say I approve of the others, myself, but at least with most of them, the only person getting hurt is the ones taking them.” Valentine looked at Hancock meaningfully, giving him a disapproving frown.</p>
<p>Hancock ignored it and continued, “No Jet, though.”</p>
<p>“That gets made with mutant brahmin’s dung,” Valentine reminded. “No mutant brahmins, no Jet.”</p>
<p>The barmaid returned with Hancock’s drink, and the ghoul gave her one of his more charming smiles. “Thanks, Posy. Oh, and by the way, my friend here,” he gestured towards Valentine, “isn’t allowed to pay for anything tonight, you got that? Anything he gets is on me.”</p>
<p>“You got it, Mister Hancock,” Posy replied before she turned towards Valentine and judged the remains of his drink. “Get you another Old Persnickety?” she asked.</p>
<p>Valentine gave Hancock a brief frown for putting him on the spot, but then then smiled up at Posy. “S’pose you can, thanks,” he answered.</p>
<p>“Be right back,” she said and headed off, stopping at one of the other tables a bit closer to the bar.</p>
<p>“Anyway, I was saying, no Jet, but they got this stuff that seems to act pretty similar called ‘Dragon Magic’...” Hancock picked their conversation back up.</p>
<p>Valentine shook his head. “I suppose it’s no use pointing out that that stuff’s known to have permanent physical side effects. Scales and horns and whatnot.”</p>
<p>Hancock just looked at Valentine for a long moment without saying a word, lips twisted up at the corners in amusement.</p>
<p>Valentine sighed. “Yeah, I thought so,” he muttered.</p>
<p>Hancock grinned and spread out his hands. “It can only make me sexier, but so far, no such luck.”</p>
<p>Valentine shook his head and took a sip of his drink, muttering, “I guess this explains how you managed to spend three months in this city without knowing I was here.”</p>
<p>“Hey, it’s a big city,” Hancock protested. “By the time I had sorted out that I <em>wasn’t</em> hallucinating all of this, you had fallen out of the news. Sure, maybe I heard some rumors that the Commander of the Watch was taking on a second spouse, but the folks I was hearing it from couldn’t get it straight whether it was a strange sort of golem, some kind of undead, or even an Igor experiment of some sort. Now, I’ve met golems and undead, there was no reason to assume they were talking about <em>you</em>, so I just thought, ‘Second spouse? Good for him,’ and went about my business until the wedding put your name <em>back</em> into the papers.”</p>
<p>“So if you haven’t spent the last three months high out of your mind, just what <em>have</em> you been up to?” Valentine asked.</p>
<p>Hancock opened his dark eyes wide and gave Valentine an innocent expression. “What, you don’t think <em>I</em> couldn’t have done just that?”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t a challenge, Hancock,” Valentine sighed. “But I’ve picked up that you seem to have managed a pretty good feel for the city for someone who’s only been here a few months, so clearly you’ve been up to <em>something</em>.”</p>
<p>Hancock beamed. “Y’know, Nick, that’s actually a pretty funny story…” he began. And though Valentine knew on the intellectual level that he and the ghoul had never truly met as real people until earlier that week, he found himself settling into easy banter with Hancock, as though they really had known each other for years. It seemed some bits of backstory really were worth keeping.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>We love comments of all lengths, and understand the need for low-energy commenting like kudos. If you ever find yourself wanting to give us additional kudos, feel free to leave a comment of an icon or emoji of a heart!</strong> &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Is Love Quantum?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Nick Valentine loves Sam, and marrying him was certainly a convenient solution to the various problems they’d encountered when their relationship became public, but he can’t shake the feeling that he comes in second place when compared with Sybil, and can’t help but wonder how things might have gone if only he or Sam had asserted himself more when he’d first shown up in Ankh-Morpork. DiMA offers to show him, but as it turns out, Time may have trousers, but there are usually far more than two possible outcomes...</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Takes place a month or two into the marriage</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Is Love Quantum?</em>
</p><p>Nick had been to Jasant’s Coffee Bar before with Piper a few times, and the barista remembered that Nick would buy a double shot of espresso with a shot of whiskey in it and leave a tip, despite Nick looking like something that did not eat or, possibly, ate things like blood, flesh, or rocks. The metal teeth tripped people up. When Nick met there not with Piper but with DiMA, DiMA did draw a few uncertain looks, and as Nick nudged to DiMA to <em>get something</em>, DiMA said simply, “One black coffee, please.”</p><p>Nick knew that DiMA didn’t really like drinking much of anything, but he’d grudgingly do coffee, and it was good for both of them to get out of their usual grinds or unusual grinds, as the case might be, and it was rude to go to a coffee shop and not get anything.</p><p>They grabbed their beverages from the bar, and settled down in a small, cozy booth. DiMA winced just a little as he sat down, smoothing his robe around him. Nick leaned back and asked, “So, how have you been?”</p><p>DiMA admitted, “I blew an actuator in my back a week ago, and I haven’t been able to reach it to repair it. You?”</p><p>“Pretty smooth, so far, and the Watch has a surprisingly good medical plan, when I need it. You want me to help you with that actuator repair later?” said Nick, who’d noticed that twinge as DiMA sat down.</p><p>“Please,” said DiMA, optics flashing gratitude.</p><p>“Anyway, so Shaun’s made himself a little crystal radio, and it’s the damnedest thing, but sometimes, he picks up… music? I think it’s music. I can’t recognize the style, or even if there’s a language, but if I try to tune my internal radio to whatever he’s picking up, all I get is static,” Nick said.</p><p>“Hmm,” said DiMA, looking thoughtful. He toyed with his mug. “...I sometimes hear voices on my internal radio. They’re usually counting off numbers in Überwaldean. Have you ever…?”</p><p>Nick blinked. “Ah. No.”</p><p>DiMA idly traced his fingertips over the table, which had names and messages from bored previous patrons carved into it. “I wonder… Nick, would you say that you expect to hear nothing but static on your radio?”</p><p>Nick rubbed the back of his head and snorted. “I mean, yeah! There’s no one on the entire Disc except some of us,” being refugees from that icono-game, “who even have a concept of what radio waves are.”</p><p>“I can’t say I’m that sure,” DiMA murmured. “Interesting.”</p><p>Nick decided to change the subject. “Young Sam’s gotten really into velocipedes. Sybil and I are gonna go catch <em>Chicken Lake</em> next week - did you know that the composer, Maistro Lapwing, has actually moved to the ol’ Big Wahooni, so he can marry his sweetie, Serezha Aleksandrovich? Probably gonna see a lot more of his work coming to the Opera House here. I hear he’s going to score a piece for the Agatean Barking Dog.”</p><p>DiMA listened politely to all that and then asked, “And how is your marriage, brother?”</p><p>Nick blinked again. “Swell? It’s fine, DiMA. Sam keeps trying to get me to go in for a custom-fit crossbow, and I keep telling him, if I can’t afford it myself, I don’t want him buying it for me. He’s probably gonna just measure me at some point when I’m out of it in a defrag and get me one for Hogswatch, but what can you do?”</p><p>Nick had always been awkward about accepting gifts, and he had his pride.</p><p>“You still consider it the best option from among your readily attainable options within the major allied phase sets of reality?” DiMA inquired neutrally.</p><p>“What?” Nick asked, baffled, and then took apart that sentence in his head. “Oh, sure.” </p><p>“You had expressed some concern to me after your engagement that your suitor did not return your feelings as you would wish them to be returned,” DiMA added, still very neutrally.</p><p>Nick had to think about that. “I did tell you I didn’t think Sam loved me, didn’t I? But no, I was wrong. He loves me. He’s just better about saying, ‘I love Nick,’ to Sybil than he is about saying, ‘I love you,’ to me, but he’s working on that. Talking to Sybil, Sam’s always been real awkward about emotional stuff. Can barely tell his heart from a hole in the wall.”</p><p>DiMA murmured, “Good. You deserve to be loved.”</p><p>Nick sipped his double shot espresso with whiskey and looked up at the fly-specked ceiling with the wooden cross-trestles with the carved graffiti. The barista did the drink with a dash of bitters, which tied it all together, though Nick skipped the simple syrup that the drink called for. He didn’t burn sugar so well. There he was, the off-duty detective, pulling double-duty with his genre conventions by drinking coffee and whiskey at the same time, looking like a cool cat in his off-duty attire.</p><p>Then Nick broke down and admitted, “Not that Sam loves me as much he loves Sybil, though.”</p><p>DiMA had told him about the faulty actuator in his back; it was only fair that Nick share what was broken about him, too.</p><p>A little sorrow pricked at the wrinkles of DiMA’s synthflesh face, particularly in the crows’ feet around his optics, but his voice stayed that same soothing neutral as he asked, “What makes you say that?”</p><p>Nick snorted bitterly. “That Sam threw me in the trash to appease his wife?” </p><p>That wasn’t <em>exactly</em> what had happened. Sam came from a strictly monogamous cultural background, as did Sybil. Sam had assumed he would lose someone, even if his mind wasn’t quite equipped to deal with losing either of his loves. Assuming that he would lose Nick, his mind filling in that Nick wouldn’t want to court a married man, that Nick was too <em>good</em> to court a married man, had been easier on poor Sam, and so his brain had done that. Nick understood all that. Cold, rational understanding didn’t change how he felt.</p><p>“Has he done that recently?” said DiMA.</p><p>“No, of course not,” Nick said, frowning.</p><p>“What other evidence do you have that he loves you less?” DiMA prompted.</p><p>“I mean, the way he waited until it was convenient for him to see if I still wanted him? He broke my heart and threw it in the garbage, but I still gave it right back to him when he asked,” Nick said, crossing his arms and looking away and down.</p><p>That wasn’t exactly what had happened, either. Sam had been wanting to ask Nick for a while, had gotten up the courage to ask Sybil for permission to court Nick again, and then the excrement had hit the rotary device. Nick knew that.</p><p>“Has he hurt you more recently?” DiMA said gently.</p><p>Nick had to think about that. “...no? Not any more so than everyday misunderstandings. Like him pushing me about gifts or him not wanting to take me to hoity toity shindigs because the real deal is that he doesn’t want to go. Sam’s very… fair about things. He’s so busy, and there’s the boys, but he tries to give equal time and attention to me and Sybil, or at least equitable time.” </p><p>“Do you think love is quantum or a continuous variable?” DiMA queried.</p><p>Usually, wizards used ‘quantum’ as a shorthand for something they either did not want to explain to a layperson or could not explain to a layperson. Nick, however, understood what DiMA meant and said, “Continuous. Love’s not like electron excitation states, though it’s, heh, certainly an exciting state.”</p><p>“Intriguing analogy. Do you think love, like an atom, has limited slots for valency?” said DiMA.</p><p>“Depends? You ought to be able to love all your children, no matter how many you have, but I do think most people are probably only wired to have one romantic love at a time, though I think there’s also more folks who ain't wired that way than anyone wants to admit,” Nick speculated. Now he was the one playing with his drink. Societies couldn’t demand monogamy the way that most of them did without it being a state that worked for most people, and while monogamy worked for most people, it clearly didn’t work for all of them, no matter how most societies tried to force three pin plugs into two pin sockets.</p><p>“So you think love is a continuous variable and that the number of available slots are themselves variable,” DiMA summarized. “Do you think two loves can hold the same value?”</p><p>“Sure, going back to children, you ought to be able to love all of them the same, at least ideally,” Nick said, shrugging. “Many folks don’t, favouring one child or another, but reality is messy.”</p><p>“Would you accept the conjecture that love can change over time?” DiMA soliticited.</p><p>“Obviously, can’t go from 0 to 60,” another analogy lost on Ankh-Morpork, “otherwise.”</p><p>“Is it fair to say that you have observed that the Commander had not significantly treated you in a less than fashion recently and also that you have made the observation that he has a sense of fair play?” DiMA asked.</p><p>“Right, that’s more or less what I said…” Nick mumbled.</p><p>“Are you able to refute the conjecture that he may have come to love you as much as he loves the Lady Sybil? Assuming the premise that the value of love may change over time and that loves may hold the same value,” DiMA concluded. </p><p>Nick stared at DiMA. He squirmed in his seat and not merely because the wood of the booth was sticky. </p><p>“Merely something to think about,” DiMA added, almost carelessly.</p><p>“Thought you didn’t like Sam too much,” Nick said guardedly.</p><p>“My feelings about the Commander are immaterial, as are, indeed, all feelings, except in certain odd edge cases involving psionically gifted empaths… but I care for you, brother, and I would not see you unduly burdened by illusionary weights that you need not carry,” said DiMA. “Have you spoken about your concerns with your husband?”</p><p>“No,” Nick said, looking at his drink. “I told you, Sam’s not good with feelings, anyway.” Then Nick grimaced, thinking about what DiMA had just outlined. “And maybe I ain’t doin’ so hot, either.”</p><p>Maybe Sam didn’t love him less.</p><p>Nick looked up and joked, “If the wizard thing doesn’t work out, maybe you could try counselling.”</p><p>“You know, smaller towns and villages that cannot entice a witch due to the general witch shortage often hire wizards,” said DiMA.</p><p>“I didn’t know that,” said Nick, who had not even been aware that there was a general witch shortage.</p><p>“Now, extrapolating based off the actuarial tables suggests that Jahn the Conqueror University in Genua will be hiring in the next few years,” DiMA said, “and Brazeneck is always looking for more faculty, mainly due to difficulties ensuing from misplacing their own.”</p><p>“Brazeneck is in Pseudopolis, isn’t it? Y’know, I hear tell other cities aren’t nearly as good as Ankh-Morpork is about nonhumans,” said Nick.</p><p>DiMA narrowed his optics and gently, lovingly corrected, “Ankh-Morpork is not ‘good’ about non-humans. It is merely less bad. The distinction is important.”
</p><p>“C’mon, DiMA, maybe it ain’t perfect, but it’s home,” protested Nick. “Morporkia’s been good to me.”</p><p>“Are you aware of the myth of the model minority?” DiMA inquired, “Are you aware of your own tendency to think that if you keep your head down, work hard, and accept mistreatment without complaint, that perhaps someday, you will be accepted, and are you aware of your own tendency to discount evidence to the contrary?”</p><p>“<em>DiMA,</em>” Nick snapped, irritated and defensive. His hands clutched the edge of the table.</p><p>“I will be a <em>persona non grata</em> wherever I go, if I am afforded the ‘kindness’ of being a <em>persona</em> in the first place. I hold no illusions with regards to this matter, brother,” said DiMA, absently, “but that is in the future, and we are here now. You said you’d help me with that actuator?”</p><p>“Yeah,” said Nick. “Sure thing.” DiMA had helped Nick with how he felt broken. Returning the favour was only fair play.</p><hr/><p>But when he went home after helping DiMA with that actuator, young Sam was learning times tables, and Shaun wanted help with underwater basket-weaving, and then Vimes got called away on an emergency budget meeting and then Sybil wanted Nick to go to a meeting of the Cavern Clubs because his friend Deacon was going to be there and… time slipped through his fingers. It was two weeks later, and he was checking up on his brother again. Someone had to, and maybe Nick was getting used to the idea of having a family. The conversation ranged far and afield, from blit-slood inversions to the price of leather to -</p><p>“I just wonder how things might have turned out differently, if we’d only sat down and talked like adults about it sooner,” Nick said wistfully. “I mean, you were there, DiMA. You heard how Sam wasn’t listening to me.”</p><p>“Because you two do think fairly similarly in general, he thought he knew what you were thinking. He was incorrect, but nonetheless,” DiMA murmured.</p><p>“Yeah, I get that, I just…”</p><p>“Do you really want to know the other ways it could have happened?” DiMA inquired, taking an uncomfortably intense interest in Nick’s half-finished whiskey-and-coffee.</p><p>“I’m kinda curious,” Nick admitted. He was always curious.</p><p>DiMA reached across the table and took Nick’s half-full coffee cup. He rubbed a fingertip around the rim until the mug sang - wasn’t it supposed to be glass that did that? Nick stared down into his drink. It wasn’t brown anymore, it was grey - no, it was white and black, like static - </p><p>He could faintly hear DiMA saying, “The thing about time is, people speculate about what would have gone differently, as if there were only two options, as if time were a pair of trousers, to which I must say that I would pity the tailor<a id="ereturn1" name="ereturn1"></a><sup><a href="#efoot1">1</a></sup> who must make trousers with an infinite number of legs that diverge and coalesce, twisting around each other -</p><p> <a id="efoot1" name="efoot1"></a> <sup><a href="#ereturn1">1</a> </sup> <span class="small"><em>Time, who put on his trousers one leg at a time, was rather offended.</em></span></p><hr/><p>There was a timeline where Nick Valentine was fractionally bolder, and when Sam Vimes wasn’t listening, rather than being deterred, Nick made him listen. “Sam, would you listen to me for one goddamned second? I love you. I don’t want to leave you. Can’t we talk to your wife about all this?”</p><p>Vimes blinked at him. “You don’t want to leave me? But, I’m, uhm, married, and you’re a good man.”</p><p>“Not as good as you think I am,” said Nick, rolling his eyes.</p><p>Vimes bit his lip. “Well… if you’d like to discuss it all with Sybil…”</p><p>So Valentine was brought home to the Vimes manor, and after Shaun and young Sam were settled in to play with each other, Vimes intimated that he had something very pressing to discuss with both Sybil and Nick. He took a deep breath. Then explained, “Sybil, you have no idea how glad I am that you’re alive, but I did think you were dead, and I was lost for what seemed like months. With that in mind, I should introduce you to Mr. Nick Valentine, my boyfriend.”</p><p>Sybil stared at her husband, searching his scarred face to see if he was making some obscure sort of joke. Finally, she said weakly, “Well. Now you know I’m alive. I suppose that mistake’s cleared up.”</p><p>Nick winced at being referred to as a mistake, but he said, “Look, I’m glad you’re alive, too, madam. You have no idea how broken up Sam was over you.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t be alive if not for Nick,” Sam said, rather defensively. “He saved my life quite a few times.”</p><p>“And for that, he has my gratitude,” Sybil said carefully.</p><p>“I just wanted to ask if maybe, you might consider letting Sam have a bit on the side?” Nick asked.</p><p>Her eyes said it all, as Nick’s hopes crashed like a Vertibird: violently and in multiple bouncing pieces. “No. It’s not done. Well, it is, and then it’s denied, but that’s… not something I’ve ever worried about my Sam doing, and I’m sure my Sam won’t start now.”</p><p>Nick frowned. “There’s no negotiated polyamorous relationsips?”</p><p>Sybil puzzled over the word ‘polyamorous’. “That’s disgusting… an Ephebian prefix on a Latatian root? It ought to be polyerosy. And no. I’m sure that’s nothing my Sam would entertain.”</p><p>“I’d entertain it,” Sam mumbled, guilty, almost inaudibly, but all the same.</p><p>Sybil’s gaze turned hurt, and she said quietly, “Sam. You can’t.”</p><p>Gazing unhappily at his shoes, Sam asked, “Will you insist that I scorn him? That I prove false on my obligations? Sybil, Nick and I were raising Shaun together. Would you take a father from his son?”</p><p>“I know you, Sam. You’ll do the right thing,” said Sybil, with a fractured hope.</p><p>That was when Nick caved. “Look. I’m not a homewrecker. I get it. You don’t want your husband to have a boyfriend,” even if she apparently wanted to phrase it to make it Sam’s idea. “I’ll leave.”</p><p>Sybil breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Mr. Valentine, for being reasonable.”</p><p>Sam looked up at Nick, his expression bleak, and he snapped, almost an order, “No! Don’t leave.”</p><p>“Sam, I’m not gonna get between you and your lady wife. There’s no space for me here,” said Nick, and he went into that good night.</p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>...and he tripped over a duck on the way out and fell down a storm sewer where someone had nicked the manhole cover.</p>
  <p>...and he went to Fourecks.</p>
  <p>...and he stumbled into the Shades where he was looked upon as a valuable source of wire and was summarily taken apart.</p>
  <p>...and he entered into a tempestuous private eye partnership with Lewton, which made him crave having drunk-as-a-skunk Marty back.</p>
  <p>...and he went far and afield, to a lil’ place called Port Duck, a trade city in the Brown Islands.</p>
</blockquote><p>And sometimes Vimes just sank into his chair and wept over the man who wasn’t there. “Sybil, I love him.”</p><p>And sometimes, Vimes was the man who’d commandeered the <em>Milka</em> to chase after Angua<em> -</em></p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>...and he found his lover’s body and burned the whole city down.</p>
  <p>...and he couldn’t find Nick, though he tried; the man was long gone.</p>
  <p>...and he had to step away and call in Sergeant Littlebottom to handle the crime scene, because he’d lost not only his lunch but the breakfast he’d eaten a week ago, and he couldn’t see for the crying.</p>
  <p>...and he found Nick, who said that partners were for suckers and closed the door in his face.</p>
  <p>...and he found Nick, who’d partnered up with Prop Lee, the one cop in Port Duck, and Prop Lee had sunglasses and a repeating crossbow, and Vimes really couldn’t compete with that.</p>
  <p>...and he found Nick, but they were both kidnapped by Neverlands pirates who press-ganged them into indentured servitude, where they were forced to work at an amusement park for ten years.</p>
</blockquote><p>Sometimes, Vimes did not give chase though every bone in his body screamed at him - the chase was what he was made for! He let Valentine walk away. He sorrowed. He had known that he could not bear the loss of a lover again, and while Valentine hadn’t died, he was just as surely gone.</p><p>Sometimes, Sybil looked at her husband, who’d forsworn a good man and thrown his obligations to the wind and taken a father from his boy, all for her, and she thought that perhaps she’d made a mistake. Perhaps she ought to have gotten to know Valentine first; seen if a diplomatic accommodation could be arranged. </p><p>And sometimes, Sybil didn’t reach out and simply accepted that the Wasteland had broken her husband, in a sense. Ramkin women were good at looking after husbands who went off to far away places and came back invalids.</p><p>But sometimes, she reached out.</p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>...but Valentine could not be found.</p>
  <p>...but the letter was lost in the mail; it still happened, sometimes.</p>
  <p>...but Valentine had been enslaved by an enchantress in a far-off land and was in no shape to reply.</p>
  <p>...but Valentine got the letter and never opened it.</p>
  <p>...but Valentine opened the letter, and read it, over and over again, before ripping it up and throwing it to the winds.</p>
  <p>...and Valentine, trembling, wrote a reply. He could carry a torch for a century. A few months wasn’t that long.</p>
</blockquote><p>Sometimes, his reply never made it back, eaten by a vole, stolen by gnomes, translated into a language Sybil could not read, but sometimes, it did, and the reply led to a correspondence, and sometimes that correspondence led to Valentine returning to Ankh-Morpork - sometimes, he’d never left - and sometimes, it didn’t. There were paths when he came back to find -</p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>...that Tektus had killed Sam, moments before Angua and Sally kicked open the submarine hatch.</p>
  <p>...a white flash and utter nothingness, as Tektus turned the launch key, setting off a chain reaction that annihilated the Disc.</p>
  <p>...that Sam had taken a <em>bullet</em> meant for the Patrician, and a killer was on the loose.</p>
  <ul>
    <li>So why were the Patrician’s fingerprints on the gun?</li>
  </ul>
  <p>...that Sam had been run over by a wine cart.</p>
  <ul>
<li>in a metaphorical sense.</li>
<li>in a strictly literal sense.</li>
</ul>
  <p>...that Sam had been hit by some stray magic and was now a fuming Samantha, but she was game to try again, if Valentine was.</p>
  <p>...that his Sam gave him a tight hug and begged, fingers digging into Valentine’s synthflesh, “Don’t leave me ever again.”</p>
</blockquote><p>Fractal infinities inked in coffee stretched before Valentine, some strange, some bleak, some wonderful.</p><p>Valentine picked up his cup of coffee and downed it.</p><p>DiMA was there, across from him. He inquired solicitously, “Did that answer your question?”</p><p>Valentine glared at his brother. He said flatly, “Thanks, DiMA. You managed to do what KL-E-0 couldn’t: you weaponized depression.”</p><p>DiMA sagged. “I don’t know what you saw, brother. The visions were for you, not for me.”</p><p>“...well, thank goodness for that,” Valentine muttered, thinking about some of the fractal infinities, such as the one where a glitch in the laws of reality had caused clothing to no longer exist. “I guess… if I got anything out of that, it’s that talking about it like adults earlier wouldn’t necessarily have been so hot an idea. Sybil needed some time to warm up to me. Which… I should have known.” Valentine sighed.</p><p>“Could I get you another drink?” DiMA offered.</p><p>“Nah,” Valentine said, shaking his head.</p><p>Then DiMA tendered, “Perhaps you should discuss your feelings with your husband.”</p><p>“That’s… probably a better idea than fractal infinity coffee,” Nick grumbled.</p><hr/><p>But when Nick went home, he didn’t. There was a ball on his calendar. Shaun needed help with soldering. Life got in the way.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong><b>A:</b></strong> I just want to state that, as far as this ‘verse is concerned, Vimes does love Nick as much as he loves Sybil, but 1) Vimes is bad at articulating this, and 2) Nick has self-confidence issues. Cue Nick ruminating on the subject and not, like, just talking to Vimes about it. (The both of them will eventually get better about this.)</p><p><strong>We love comments of all lengths, and understand the need for low-energy commenting like kudos. If you ever find yourself wanting to give us additional kudos, feel free to leave a comment of an icon or emoji of a heart!</strong> &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Credit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Valentine was going to have access to a chequebook whether he wanted it or not.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Takes place during the first year of Valentine and Vimes's marriage.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Credit</em>
</p>
<p>Valentine didn’t want to have access to one of Vimes’s lines of credit. A few months ago, he’d argued quite vociferously against it. “I don’t need to be able to throw around cool thousands. No one does.”</p>
<p>“But what if there’s a kidnapping or you’re in hot pursuit and you need to commandeer a boat? Or what if a dragon destroys a city block? What if the Post Office bodges up another batch of stamps and you have to buy up the whole production run because the stamps are hallucinogenic?” Vimes replied, hands up in the air as he paced.</p>
<p>Valentine stared and tilted his head to the side. “Sweetheart, why are these things you’re worried about?”</p>
<p>Vimes stared back at him. “Why <em>aren’t</em> you worried?”</p>
<p>In the end, Vimes won that argument, although Valentine mostly tried to forget about that chequebook that Vimes had shoved into Valentine’s inventory when Valentine had been out of it running a defragmentation cycle. However, whenever Sybil and Nick went to the Opera or the Dysk or anything similar, some interesting gymnastics, both mental and monetary occured.</p>
<p>Valentine had to pay, because he was the fellah. (They weren’t on a date, though. He just got all the doors for her and pulled out her chair and kissed her hand and went to the bar to fetch her drinks because he had <em>manners</em>, and that was how a decent fellah treated a lady.) However, his Constable’s salary couldn’t buy the private box seats that Sybil liked, which meant that Valentine had to reach for the deliberately forgotten chequebook in his inventory, which was really Vimes’s money, which, ultimately, was really Sybil’s money. It absolutely wasn’t that Sybil was paying for the absolutely not a date.</p>
<p>Sybil had settled into her seat in the box, and Valentine returned from the bar with her sherry, which had been aged long enough that it coulda had voting rights in Ephebe if it wasn’t a foreigner, and his own neat whiskey. She took her drink, and he sat down beside her, scanning over the Playbill again. </p>
<p>“Y’know, I gotta thank you again. For giving me a chance,” said Valentine. “You didn’t have to.”</p>
<p>Sybil blinked. “Hmm? Oh, Nick. We’ve been over that. You’re perfectly lovely with my Sam. It does me some good, knowing there’s someone who’ll follow him out into the dark night rain whose motivations are more… personal.” Her smile turned wry. “Besides, now I’ve someone to take me to the Opera who is actually up for discussion afterwards.”</p>
<p>Whether Valentine wanted it or not, he had credit, but perhaps he should have given Sybil a bit more of it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>We love comments of all lengths, and understand the need for low-energy commenting like kudos. If you ever find yourself wanting to give us additional kudos, feel free to leave a comment of an icon or emoji of a heart!</strong> &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Things You Said At 1 AM</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Valentine learns that Vimes is a night owl.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This takes place during Going Nuclear, while Vimes was still stuck in the game and before Valentine realized it was a game.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Things You Said At One AM</em>
</p>
<p>Some humans were naturally night owls, people who’d sleep like a log by day and be more alert than the bats at night. Sam was one of those people, Valentine rapidly learned. </p>
<p>“You’ve worked night shift,” Valentine observed of Sam one night.</p>
<p>Sam gave a short, sharp, strange little laugh. “Oh, Nick. I <em>am</em> the night shift. Or I was.”</p>
<p>Statements like that weren’t incongruent for a supposed soldier.</p>
<p>Another night, while they were skulking around, trying to find a trace of a girl kidnapped by raiders, Valentine was again struck by how Sam hated killing when he was forced into it. Valentine didn’t like killing, himself, so this was one of the things he was growing to like about Sam. It was peculiar, though. Sam was a man of simmering, constant, barely-contained anger. He’d supposedly been a soldier - though Valentine was finding that thought increasingly unlikely. He hated killing. Valentine commented, “Not much for bloodshed, huh?”</p>
<p>“If I have to go for the sword on my belt,” the Shem Drowne sword, with its radioactive bite, rather than any gun of any kind, “I’ve failed.”</p>
<p>Yeah, that was weird for a soldier.</p>
<p>Weeks later, and by night, they lay together, Valentine with Sam curled against him. Valentine stroked Sam’s hair and suggested, “Get to sleep. It’ll do your injuries some good.”</p>
<p>Sam was a criss cross of scars, Valentine knew now that he’d seen all of Sam. He was a tremendously effective dirty fighter, and he hated killing, and Valentine was quite convinced the man was no soldier. After the fight which had ended in escaping from some Gunners earlier in the night, Sam would have some new scars to add to the pile.</p>
<p>“You won’t be lonely?” Sam asks.</p>
<p>Valentine felt startled. “Nah, doll. I’ll be fine. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you.” He didn’t need sleep. He’d stood watch for Sam before. Maybe it felt a little different for Sam, now that they were… involved.</p>
<p>“Make certain nothing happens to <em>you</em>,” Sam corrected, though he was dead tired. “I couldn’t bear it if something were to happen to you.”</p>
<p>Sam had lost a wife, and his son was missing. Valentine was touched that Vimes was feeling that clingy about him, a battered old android.</p>
<p>Valentine snorted. “I can look after myself while you get some shuteye, sweetheart.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><strong>We love comments of all lengths, and understand the need for low-energy commenting like kudos. If you ever find yourself wanting to give us additional kudos, feel free to leave a comment of an icon or emoji of a heart!</strong> &lt;3</p>
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